Hello everyone! I am Gundeep!

Last Friday, I along with Yujun and NUS Entrepreneur Association organized garageTalk – an event meant to connect global leaders, altruists, students and entrepreneurs.

The event kicked off at 6:30pm with light dinner. The food area was filled with 80 people from different backgrounds and different parts of the world. Standing at the corner of the room, I felt satisfied to see old classmates meeting each other, entrepreneurs sharing ideas with budding entrepreneurs, employers meeting potential employees and like-minded people sharing ideas and inspiring each other.

Then at 7:30pm, Tom Kosnik, one of our Stanford professors for Global Entrepreneurial Marketing shared his vision of GLEAN (Global Leaders Entrepreneurs and Altruists Network) with everyone. During his talk, I realized the diversity of the in garageTalk and how each one of us could contribute to other people’s life to make world a better place. Following Tom Kosnik’s talk, we had 3 entrepreneurs, Julian, Dev Ramnane and Michael Pierantozzi talking to us about their entrepreneurial lives. They ended their talks with different challenges each one of them was facing in their respective companies. The thing that inspired me was Michael Pierantozzi’s quote, “Leaving a big company and starting your venture is like jumping out of an aeroplane and building a new one on your way down.” Indeed, starting a company is a challenge but one needs to take risks in life to be able to start next Google or Microsoft.

The event ended but the 3 challenges posed by the entrepreneurs were still roaming in my mind. I also met other like-minded people who were willing to help me for the next garageTalk.

Indeed, the event was PRICELESS for people who had come with an open mind. I could see new friendships forming and partnerships nurturing. It was great organizing such an event and meeting people of different genres.

The Singapore American Business Association (SABA)
brings us this very interesting seminar about.. ok the blog post title is pretty self explanatory..

At the center of the limelight would be  Patrick Yam, who’s the CEO of Sensei Partners LL, a Menlo Park, CA venture capital firm, who has a pretty good history in the finance realm, check him out!

In short, this seminar would touch on:

• Validity of historical investment myths
• Return on Location (ROL) – which refutes the popular contention of the “on-hour” rule of venture capital investing

Patrick would proceed to elaborate why ROL is “an answer to better venture capital investing today and beyond”.

Check it out from SABA’s website!

NUSEA recently went to the Womens 2.0 napkin challenge, an innovative event where participants had to mail their business idea on a napkin. =)

The top 5 teams would pitch their ideas (this time with presentation slides) to a panel of VCs and industry experts, as well as a packed audience of eager entrepreneurs, excited to see the ideas.

The 5 companies that presented were:
• FindYourScene: A community website where people can find “their crowd” and post, discover, and rate social events.
• Laser-Seal: Exploits ground-breaking interaction between light physics and cell molecular biology to reduce cost and improve quality of surgical wound closure.
• QTstar: Video monetization and intermediary ad service company in China and the United States.
• O’Light: Cutting-edge OLED technology to lighting designs.
• (YOU)STYLEME: Online fashion community where men and women who have particular style needs can connect with other consumers who are style-savvy in a fun and engaging way.
All of them had solid presentations with well thought out plans. In the end, the 2 winning teams were O’Light and Laser-Seal. The audience choice award went to O’Light as well. More details on the event can be found here.

Winning Team: Laser-Seal

Winner and Audience Choice - O’Light

(Pictures courtesy of Women 2.0)

The takeaway I got from this was not so much on the ideas and how people were pitching it. I learnt that there were so many people out there who were passionate about their own ideas and willing to share it publicly to get feedback. Trust me - Coming up with an idea and making the effort to come up with plans is hard. But to pitch the idea in front of a large crowd and pitching it to a panel of critical and experienced entrepreneurs and VCs was no mean feat. That was something I believed NUSEA members and Singaporeans alike could greatly learn from. What we really need are people who are passionate about what they do and not be afraid of risking everything to go pursue it. Having an idea that is perceived as bad or “just won’t work” is fine. It’s the effort and the process of going through it that really counts. A true failure is one who never tried in the first place. In my eyes, everyone who took the effort to draw out their ideas on that little napkin and send it to the Women 2.0 team deserved a big pat on the back for making the effort and trying.

-Mohan Belani

A new year has begun and what better way to celebrate it than the usual traditional Chinese 8 course dinner feast. The Lunar New Year Celebration dinner this year was co-organized by NUSEA, SABA and SGConnect at the Dynasty Restaurant in Cupertino. Held at a classy Chinese restaurant, the night was set for good food, great company, and an excellent line-up of entertainment.

NUSEA’s role was to encourage and rally Singaporean student bodies from colleges around the bay area, to join in this celebration and participate in the programs for the evening. We coordinated the programs for the evening and hosted the entire show. The night began with a well choreographed Fashion Show which featured clothes of oriental design, by Lan Vie, and shoes from our very own Singaporean Designer Nora Haron. Modeling and also a guest for the evening was Miss Asian American Queen, Jennifer Fields. Throughout the evening we had performances from the Stanford, Berkeley and NUSEA students in a mini Talent Competition. From NUSEA, Bernard and Sophia played and sang 关怀方式 <Guan Huai Fang Shi>, to the 450 strong turn-out.

The dinner not only allowed us to see the greater Singaporean community at large, but also allowed us to savor traditional Chinese dishes only served during the Chinese New Year. We even had Yu Sheng! It all ended well with an enthusiastic lion dance, much to the amusement of the many kids present. It was indeed an evening to remember.

-Harville Tan